It was interesting sleeping in subzero temps in a car. We do have good sleeping bags, so that kept us warm. In the morning, when we wiped out the condensation, we discovered many birds had christened our car overnight with poop 😂 While we cleaned bird shit off our car, the customs folks ambled in at 9am, booted up their computers for 30 mins 😱 and finally finished stamping our papers at 10:30! From there, we proceeded to get road tax, insurance, local currency, SIM card, Petrol, water and finally drove through 315kms of amazing Mongolian landscape. Vast emptiness surrounded by mountains. The vastness is mesmerizing. Just hundreds of miles of nothingness. There were hundreds of miles of nothingness in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan too, but this one just feels like it’s not even been seen by enough humans, let alone be trod on!

Having seen mountains in so many countries, it’s become a favorite pastime of mine now to observe the visual differences. Mongolian mountains (so far) have been brown/red/black soil with razor sharp rocks stuck on them. There are rocks of all sizes and even large sized pebbles strewn everywhere – it’s as though the mountains were having a food fight, but ran out of food and started throwing rocks at each other. And the rocks are razor sharp! I’m in awe of how these get sheared off this sharp.
Pictured here is how every day traffic jams occur on Mongolian roads.

We are at 92 kids, can you help us get to 100 by the time we get to Ulan Baatar in 2 days?!!! Please help by donating or sharing with friends who love to travel. Tax deductible donations can be made at http://happyharriet.co